Toto's Interference
by fringeperson
Summary: ONE SHOT. COMPLETE. DO NOT OWN CHARACTERS. Toto, tired of watching his friends avoiding their own feelings, decides to take action...


For the past year, Toto had been watching two of his dearest friends with no little amount of frustration. Baron was determinedly busying himself with his garden and taking up various different hobbies that he didn't necessarily care for that much. The cat figurine had gone through basket weaving, landscape watercolour painting, wood carving, masonry, darning all his socks, making a new pair of shoes from some leather scraps he's asked Toto for, and there had been three months dedicated to intricate origami. Toto wasn't completely sure when the intricate and tiny fabric dolly had appeared on his feline friend's desk, but he sensibly refrained from mentioning it, and particularly from mentioning that it looked just like the _other_ very dear friend who's conduct had been leaving Toto vaguely uncomfortable.

Haru's conduct was perfectly normal in every way. She went shopping with her friend Hiromi, she got to school on time, she made her own tea, she rose early and did a run around the block before showering and making breakfast for herself and her mother. When this behaviour began, he sometimes heard her mother or friends commenting on the change in her, so Toto knew that her venture into the Cat Kingdom had changed her, though why exactly, he would probably never know. The thing she did the most often though, the one habit that Toto had noticed and wondered why no one else had, was the hours she spent staring out the window between drawing sketches of Lune, Yuki and all the members of the Cat Bureau, but most particularly the Baron.

The bird didn't understand. Baron had helped pretty young girls before, admittedly Haru's case was a bit different to those of the other girls they'd helped through the past two centuries, but that shouldn't have lead to this off behaviour in the two of them. Toto recalled all the previous damsels in distress who had been helped by the Bureau, and none of them had caused or suffered from such an effect as was found now in Baron and Haru.

With a sigh, he took off to find his very oldest friend and ask her for some advice. The witch lived deep in a mountain range, an hour's flight straight North, and was very wise. If anybody knew what to do about his friends, it was her.

"So your ginger friend is busying his hands to distract his mind, and your young human friend is acting strangely as well," she said, not even looking up from her stew pot when he landed on her windowsill in the evening.

"That's right," Toto answered, not questioning how she knew without him telling her. She just had that ability.

"The reason, my fine feathered friend, is very simple. The answer, however, is considerably more complicated," the old witch said, pouring a bowl of stew for herself, and fishing out a few strings of meat for Toto. "The crazy kids fell in love, but because of their situation, they really have no idea what to do about it, so they do nothing. They might think on what might have been, and then sigh in quiet despair when they remember that they cannot be together."

Toto's beady eyes bugged out. "Fell in love?!" he cawed, flapping his wings so that he didn't fall from the surprise of the statement.

"Yep," the witch answered gleefully. "Love doesn't really conquer all though. Life isn't a fairy tale, and it doesn't always work out the way people would like it to. For situations like this, if they really want it, then it's going to be me who's going to have to do the conquering."

The next day, Toto left to fetch the Baron to the witch's house. She had made a potion for both the girl and the doll, but if the Baron wasn't willing to drink his, or to ask Haru if she wanted her's, then there would be no point in either of them drinking their little vials of liquid.

Haru was more than pleased to see her friends when she returned home from her graduation ceremony, and not a little surprised at the two corked vials that Toto had strapped to his body just beneath his left wing, but when the bird explained what he had done and why, Haru found herself blushing heavily and glancing back and forth between the two creations.

Baron seemed uncharacteristically uncomfortable when he finally spoke, admitting his own feelings, in their entirety, to Haru, who was crying by the time he was done. She quickly accepted her vial from Toto and drank it down without a second thought, and determinedly took deep breaths when, as Baron also drank his vial of potion, they both began glowing. Haru was a lot smaller by the time the magic stopped, and a lot furrier. Baron, on the other hand, was a good deal less wooden than he had been. He would never be able to become a mere statue again. The two half-cats in love smiled at each other and Baron helped Haru onto Toto's back.


End file.
